Expanding climate awareness through visual art encourages a greater account for stewardship of our damaged planet. Creative practice can be a location and moment of connection that transcends the everyday, offering the opportunity to think differently. Visual art, in this sense, allows us to consider the intricate relationships which impact the natural world and where and how we can situate ourselves in it.

Miriam O'Connor
Miriam O’Connor is from Cork and was educated at Technological University, Dublin and later completed a Research Masters at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design & Technology, Dublin (2011). In her practice she draws inspiration from the sights, sounds and language of everyday life. She is curious about the multifaceted roles photography occupies in culture and the manner in which this persuasive medium permeates the way we engage with the world around us. Rather than providing answers, O’ Connor positions photography as a tool for posing questions, a playful medium that commands its own attention and analysis. Using photographs, text and printed matter, her projects have explored themes around looking and seeing; the relationship between camera and subject and the complex nature of photographic representation. Following her relocation to the family farm in recent years, O’Connor now occupies a dual role of farmer and artist, where she is interested in engaging with the elasticity of the photographic medium through everyday agricultural life.
 
Dr Declan Jordan
Declan Jordan is Vice Dean for Graduate Studies and Senior Lecturer in Economics at Cork University Business School. He is a current research associate and former co-Director of the Spatial and Regional Economics Research Centre. He is also a member of the Centre for Sports Economics and Law. Declan's research interests include regional and urban economics, business innovation, regional development and competitiveness, sustainable mobility and climate action, and sports economics. He has published widely in these areas in international peer reviewed journals. He is a regular contributor on economic issues to national and international media, including newspaper, radio, and television outlets. Prior to joining UCC, Declan gained substantial management and corporate experience

In Conversation - Miriam O'Connor and Dr Declan Jordan

Expanding climate awareness through visual art encourages a greater account for stewardship of our damaged planet. Creative practice can be a location and moment of connection that transcends the everyday, offering the opportunity to think differently. Visual art, in this sense, allows us to consider the intricate relationships which impact the natural world and where and how we can situate ourselves in it.

Caitríona Leahy
Working across analogue photography, print, sculpture, moving image & installation, Catríona Leahy’s work explores deep time environmental histories & the latent effects of human interventions. Preoccupied with the question of how to reimagine the landscape in a time of ecological crisis, her work often focuses on anthropogenic landscapes – those made or transformed by man’s intervention. Catríona Leahy is a visual artist based in Dublin and Kildare. She holds an MA Print from Royal College of Art, London (2013) and is based in the Firestation Artists Studios. Caitríona has exhibited her work across Ireland and Europe and has a major solo show at the RHA in November.


Dr Benjamin Gearey
‍Benjamin Gearey is lecturer in environmental archaeology, University College Cork, with a wide range of research interests focused on wetland and especially peatland environments. He is PI for the ongoing IRC COALESCE funded project IPeAAT, and was CO-I for the recently completed EU Joint Planning Initiative/Cultural Heritage funded project ‘WetFutures’ and other IRC funded projects. He is a member of the United Nations Global Peatlands Initiative and an elected member of the JPICH Scientific Advisory Committee with expertise in past climate change. He is editor of The Journal of Wetland Archaeology and has published extensively on aspects of peatland heritage, environmental change and human impact, in peer reviewed journals and books, including the recently published 'An Introduction to Peatland Archaeology and Palaeoenvironments' (Oxbow Books, 2023)

In Conversation - Caitríona Leahy and Dr Ben Gearey

Expanding climate awareness through visual art encourages a greater account for stewardship of our damaged planet. Creative practice can be a location and moment of connection that transcends the everyday, offering the opportunity to think differently. Visual art, in this sense, allows us to consider the intricate relationships which impact the natural world and where and how we can situate ourselves in it.

Join artist Garrett Phelan and Professor John Quinn (Zoology, University College Cork) for a conversation that will explore art, ornithology and the environment. Phelan's artwork The Hide Suite (2016) features in the current Glucksman exhibition Groundwork: Climate Awareness in the UCC Art Collection and it will serve as the starting point for this conversation.
 
Professor John Quinn
‍John Quinn is Professor in Zoology at University college cork. After working in conservation NGOs in Ireland and the UK, John Quinn returned to academia and completed his DPhil at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, on goose ecology in the arctic. He continued to work in Oxford as a postdoc and lecturer on behavioural mechanisms and ecology, in the Department of Biology and Pembroke College, before moving to UCC in 2012, where he became Professor in Zoology in 2015. His research focus is explaining individual variation in cognition and personality in wild animal systems, especially in the context of environmental effects and the gut microbiota. He is also interested in applied ecology, especially in the marine and farming environment. John was awarded an ERC Consolidator grant at UCC, was a founding Vice President of the Irish Ecological Association, and has been Associate Editor/Editor at three international journals for a total of around 20 years.
 
Garrett Phelan
Irish artist Garrett Phelan’s practice directly engages the audience with immersive site-specific drawing projects, FM radio broadcasts, sculptural installations, photography and animation. He has exhibited widely, including the 11th Lyon Biennial, France; 4th Auckland Triennial, New Zealand; SMART Project Space, Amsterdam; ICA, London; The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh; Kunstverein, Hannover; Art Statements, Basel 39; Manifesta 5, San Sebastian and a solo exhibition at IMMA in 2012.
In 2007 artist Garrett Phelan was selected by Fingal County Council, Dublin, Ireland to imagine and conceive a public art project as part of the Council's Public Art Programme funded through the Irish State's Per Cent for Art Scheme. THE HIDE PROJECT is an artwork inspired by the artist's own personal history with the coastal area of Fingal, in particular, the magnificent ecology of the Rogerstown Estuary, an area renowned for its bird life. THE HIDE PROJECT consists of four components: THE HIDE SCULPTURE, THE HIDE SUITE, www.thehideproject.com, and HIDE FM.

In Conversation - Miriam O'Connor and Dr Declan Jordan

The Glucksman

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